The driver wheezed, trying to talk. She moved to the console. Despite all the screens the system wasn’t that complicated. Forward. Back. Stop. Fortunately he had left it in park. The conductor had left the screen and was picked up on another walking back to the engine. She hesitated for only a moment before sliding the train into gear and felt as much as heard the engine kick in. Once you went AWOL you had already reached the end of the line. She might as well find out what lay beyond it.
The conductor had begun to jog. Against the wall, the driver was making frantic gagging noises. His legs lashed out as he tried to kick her.
She accelerated harder and a shimmer rippled through the frame of the train. She planted her feet as a surge of adrenaline cleared out her veins. One of the most powerful engines ever made. The conductor slid out of camera range. By now he would have reached the door. Faint clicking noises sounded from outside, quickly lost in the growing hum of the engine as it picked up speed.
The engine crossed the switch, smoothly transitioning onto the line going north. There was a quick flash of the conductor running and stumbling in the light from one of the passenger cars and then he was gone. At least he’d been smart enough to let go.
“You are . . .“
The man’s voice was barely a croak.
“. . . so much trouble.”
The headlight showed a clear straight line of track stretching into the night.
“I could say the same about you.”
She glanced at the images of the guards who had stood down now that the train was moving. How long until they knew something had changed? She pressed the lever forward far enough that the engine trembled beneath her as it kicked into gear. The thrill of being in motion coursed through her, merging with her adrenaline so that it felt as if this surging, powerful path had been exactly what she was meant to do all along. She smiled, ignoring her photo that stared sullenly out of the screen, willing the words in her description to have nothing to do with her.
Past the next junction the line curved south, taking her away from her destination. She stepped over Coulter’s body and barred the door to the rest of the train. On screen a tiny icon of a train made its way westward, the territory she was aiming for a large gray area at the top of the display.
FOUR
Blue shot into the woods the moment the bow of the canoe touched shore, the outline of the cabin and Storm’s workshop forming darker shadows in the dusk of the clearing. It had taken hours to paddle back from town, the current pushing relentlessly against the bow, the bends of the river changing and morphing in the fading light so that she thought she’d reached the final turn multiple times.
Her legs were stiff and weak as she dragged the canoe up on shore. The silver suit chafed against the raw skin under her arms where the seams had rubbed with every stroke, its warmth against the deepening chill an inadequate consolation for the raw flesh.
She dropped her backpack inside the door of her workshop, made her way to her workbench by feel, and lifted down the case for the satellite phone. Her fingers burned as she powered it on and a searing ripple of current ran up her forearm. She typed in the number and pressed send before stepping into the protective enclosure she used when she ran her experiments.
Her message would be sent to a service that would forward the message to a different service. It would then be forwarded to a designated phone lying on a desk somewhere that would automatically notify her mother’s assistant at the Gatherer’s headquarters that her dry cleaning was ready. And sometime in the next hour her mother would call.
She lowered herself to the ground to wait, being careful not to lean against the cool smoothness of the aluminum walls. Set up as a Faraday cage, the radiation from the phone would be drawn along its path, leaving her in an inert shell at its centre.
Her arms weighed heavily at her sides from the hours of paddling, and hunger gnawed at her hollow stomach as her mind traced the elaborate communications path they had set up. She identified all the places where it could fail and which would explain why the phone wasn’t ringing. She closed her eyes against the fatigue. As always the first images that rose in her thoughts were of her team and the few precious years when they had been together in the lab.
Callan had been the first one to arrive in the mornings. She would find him bent over the Gatherer’s structure, his large worker hands carefully adjusting something in the braces supporting the crystals. It had been his job to collect the materials that would support the crystals without interfering with the sensitive Gathering process.
She and Daniel would arrive together, having come from one of their barely used apartments. They should have moved in together and saved the extra rent, but there had always been something more important to do at the lab.
Jana would stroll in mid-morning, coffee in hand, and slide into her chair without a word. Her ability to speak arrived somewhere around noon right about the time that Ari would wake up from the grungy couch next to his aquarium where he had fallen asleep again in the early hours of the morning.
It was when they would be finally all settled in the lab, working at their respective areas, that the brain power of the five would merge into something larger than all of them and the wonder at what they were creating would overtake her.
“Getting all misty-eyed on us again?”
Daniel often teased her, for it wasn’t the first time her wonder had overflowed, fed by the closeness of the group and their ability to draw off each other’s energy. Sometimes the ideas and breakthroughs came so fast, it was as if they were merely players orchestrated by some higher force. God or creativity or pooled energy whatever you wanted to call it. It was so palatable she often believed she would see it shimmering in the air around them.
“Storm.”
The tone of Jana’s voice when she’d called her over had been unmistakable. Surprise, excitement, and fear all mixed together so Storm had known even before they had all gathered around the convoluted crystal structure—for the others had heard the same note in Jana’s voice—what they would find.
Several green bars glowed on the battery’s display, indicating the first time they had been able to store the energy the crystals were collecting. None of them had said anything as Jana had checked the connections, ushered them out of the test area, and ran the test again.
When the three bars had glowed green again, Storm, Daniel and Ari had all looked over their shoulders in unison, towards the unlocked door that led down three flights of the empty warehouse, as if the world’s lens that had been so oblivious to them had suddenly turned in their direction.
“What’s the temperature of the supports?”
It had been one of Callan’s and Jana’s biggest hurdles to control the temperature of any materials that came into contact with the concave dish. In their first designs the metals had melted into formless lumps, wood being the only substance that could come in contact with the Gathering process. The wood was at room temperature and they had all stared at the concave dish surrounding the crystal lattice in silent shock. It had been one thing to dream of finding free energy, quite another to see it come to fruition.
“What do we do now?”
It was Ari who had finally broken the silence, the fear and astonishment that had rendered them all speechless so evident in his voice that she had laughed and the others had followed. Deep guttural laughs that had banished any consequences that their creation might bring and left only the pure joy of their success. Soon they had been jumping around the lab like football players in the end zone, releasing the months of work and exhausted bickering, all of it suddenly worthwhile. Their excitement had filled the lab to the rafters, an insurmountable force drawing them inwards.
It was this moment that Storm remembered most. The sweetness of success strong on their lips. All of them healthy and brilliant and part of something larger than themselves. And so certain that what t
hey were doing was right.
When their exuberance had finally calmed, they’d sat squished on the couch, bathed in the light from the aquarium, each of them having some new idea on how they could improve the Gatherer’s performance and bring it closer to being a viable product. For from the beginning, that had been understood: this would be released for free, distributed into the marketplace before the government or OPEC got word of it. A small, simple invention that would change the world. She and Daniel had caught each other’s eye while they had talked, their connection as strong as it had ever been.
The group had left the lab together that night, an outing to the pizza place as exciting as it would get since they all wanted to be at the lab early the next day. Daniel must have had his suspicions that it might not all go as they planned, for he’d carried the delicate crystal structure with him, tucked carefully in discarded packing foam inside the lunch box with the Buzz Lightyear sticker. The others hadn’t noticed him taking it, so wrapped up in their ideas and how they were going to spend all the money they made. Callan and Ari had been debating between Lamborghinis and Bugattis as they’d descended the stairs, despite the fact that neither of them drove.
Daniel had slid the padlock into place, the first time anyone had bothered with the steel clamp, and Storm had made some kind of joke about the value of the couch and the scavenged parts of their lab. Daniel had laughed and slung his arm across her shoulders in a rare show of public affection. They’d trailed behind the other three as they descended the stairs, weighed down by the lunch box tucked under Daniel’s arm, though in the physical world it barely weighed anything at all.
Storm woke with her cheek cold against the concrete floor and a deep chill along her back and thighs. For a moment she was confused about where she was until the cylindrical form of her cage took shape in the flat light from the satellite phone’s display screen.
She clambered to her feet, veering to the right so that her shoulder brushed against the side of the enclosure, a sharp burn as the current momentarily chose her as a path to ground. She stumbled away, her hand pressed against the burned flesh, the agitation of the phone’s signal vibrating along her skin as she stared down at a blank screen. In a swell of anger and frustration, she powered it down and tossed it back into its case.
That had been the deal when she’d come out here. If someone had found her or if there was any emergency, she just needed to call. It would be worth risking the fields if it was an emergency. There would be an immediate response and help would be on its way. She’d never had to use it, though she had opened the case enough times during the winters when she had been willing to endure the burn of the radiation if it would have eased the ache of loneliness. The fear of being found was what kept her from turning it on, for the press of the button could have revealed to the world where she was hiding.
She navigated her way to the door in the dark, the remnants of her most recent experiments taunting her from the workbench. It was as if her ability to successfully create anything had abandoned her the moment she’d set foot in the Yukon.
The door swung inward when she turned the latch and she stumbled back. Blue’s dark shape rose to its feet and pushed in towards her, rubbing against her and circling her legs. The air pushing in behind him carried the bite of winter.
“Sorry.”
She touched the hard patch of fur between his ears, her cold fingers lingering in the warmth emanating from him.
She crossed to the cabin beneath a brilliant blanket of stars, the height of it making the clearing smaller, the outlines of the struggling trees like those of a miniaturized landscape.
Blue entered ahead of her when she opened the door to the cabin, grateful for the cool inertness of the sanctuary created by the shielded walls and windows. She stripped out of the silver suit in the darkness, only lighting the oil lamp she kept at the door once she was free of the suit’s restrictions.
She touched the lighted match to the newspaper of her pre-laid fire, waiting only long enough to make sure it caught and it had enough wood to last the night. She tried not to think of her depleted wood supply that wouldn’t get her through the coming winter.
The sheets were cold on her bed and she called Blue to her. A single turn and he curled up against her, his heat pushing back the cold. She adjusted the blankets over them and with her last bit of energy, turned the oil lamp to off.
FIVE
Maria splashed along the edge of the creek, her feet ankle-deep in icy water. The initial shock of pain had receded to an aching numbness and she looked ahead to the domed shape of the bridge that spanned the creek. She had been splashing in and out of the water for more than two hours, traveling beneath a canopy of dense forest, every moment expecting the sounds of a chase behind her. The driver from the train wouldn’t be able to follow her, but the two guards with the guns would be able to track her down without breaking a sweat.
The image of those monstrous Gatherers on the train never left her. She should have stayed to prevent them from being delivered to their destination instead of leaving the train where the track turned south.
In the end it had been Havernal’s words that had made the decision.
Make sure you get there first.
The water ran fast against the side of the bridge and there was no path along the bank for her to follow. She climbed carefully up, the grasses slippery in the morning dew, and emerged into a lighter, wider view of open fields bordered by thick patches of forest. A thin mist hung over the fields, dampening any sound. To the east, a band of yellow marked the horizon. She slid down the bank on the other side of the bridge, a strange warmth in her feet as she returned to the creek.
It was Freeman who would know how to stop the disease the Gatherer was creating. It could be as easy as a small, simple fix. Or even a limit to the size of the device so that it stayed below some limit of acceptability for humans. What worried Maria was why Freeman had been absent when rumours of the Gatherer’s connection to the plague gained strength every day. Maria had read more than one post online that argued the connection, and Freeman’s absence only fueled the possibility that it was true. Maria wondered whether she would find Freeman at all when she arrived at the coordinates. Or whether Freeman’s death would explain the absence.
There was a movement along the bank, the animal’s body hidden, its movements marked by the disturbed path it left through the tops of the individual blades of grass. It was hard to imagine the two men pursuing her without breaking the silent morning. Yet if they were good they could be within sight and she wouldn’t know. She checked behind her, the bridge almost out of sight behind branches that bowed over the creek and a bend that twisted slowly south. She would need to turn north soon, though she was reluctant to leave the creek’s protection. The GPS on her watch already indicated she had gone too far west.
The sound of splashing came from up river and she felt the iciness of the water rise to her chest. She strained to hear above the low murmur of the water pushing past her ankles. Had they circled ahead of her? She had seen no one since leaving the train, the rising hills and intensifying forests the only witnesses to her flight.
A gunshot cracked open the morning and she ran stumbling towards the bank, the water dragging at her feet. She tripped, her hands sliding through water before she recovered. On the solid ground of the bank she ran faster, until the steepness of the bank slowed her and she scrambled up, her hands clawing at partly frozen dirt, grasping at stalks of grass that broke off in her hands.
Another shot rang out and she heard splashing below her. She threw herself over the top of the bank. They had been so close—how had she not heard them? She risked a glance behind her, expecting the barrel of a gun sighting her back.
A deer, blood running from its left flank, hobbled through the water, the white light of its tail bright above the stain of blood. It paused, one ear cocked backwards upstream, the other flickeri
ng downstream, then towards her on the bank. Its head lifted in her direction, the dark bullet eyes meeting hers.
At the sound of voices upstream, she and the deer locked in an exchange that seemed to ask, you or me? With a leap it was gone, bounding downstream towards the bridge and the safety of the forest she had left behind.
The sleekness of the creek’s surface was as it had been, any disturbance her feet and the deer’s hooves had made absorbed back into the flow. The voices grew louder and Maria crouched behind the upturned roots of a fallen tree, her hand resting on the chilled wetness of the wood. The first man wore a ball cap and a hunting vest over an expansive gut. A smaller hunter, in a bright orange cap, followed. She tried to imagine that these could be the men from the train but the transformation would have been too great, the belly under the man’s shirt and his thick jowls all too real.
They stood in the place she had been, the water running below the tops of their rubber boots as they lit cigarettes. The larger man seemed to be in no hurry, the smoke rising lazily from his cigarette as the water parted around their boots. The shorter man had a pointed, narrow face, his cheeks hollowing out with each draw of the cigarette. He smoked faster and flicked ashes, wanting to be moving.
A piercing ache shot through Maria’s feet as the first flow of warm blood reached the numb flesh, and she bit her lip as the pain gathered strength. She opened her mouth to soften the sound of her laboured breathing. The smaller man lifted his head, his gaze panning the top of the river bank. She didn’t move as he dropped his cigarette and lifted his rifle. As the barrel of the gun panned the bank, the rush of blood from her pounding heart radiated the pain of her feet into her shins.
The Gatherer Series, Book 1 Page 4